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Updated: Apr 18, 2026
In Vitro Selection of Aptamers to Differentiate Infectious from Non-Infectious Viruses
Published on: September 7, 2022
In vitro selection of single-stranded DNA molecular recognition elements against S. aureus alpha toxin and sensitive
Ka L Hong1, Luisa Battistella2, Alysia D Salva3
1Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, West Virginia University, 1 Medical Center Drive, P.O. Box 9530, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA. khong@mix.wvu.edu.
Abstract:
Alpha toxin is one of the major virulence factors secreted by Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium that is responsible for a wide variety of infections in both community and hospital settings. Due to the prevalence of S. aureus related infections and the emergence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus, rapid and accurate diagnosis of S. aureus infections is crucial in benefiting patient health outcomes. In this study, a rigorous Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) variant previously developed by our laboratory was utilized to select a single-stranded DNA molecular recognition element (MRE) targeting alpha toxin with high affinity and specificity. At the end of the 12-round selection, the selected MRE had an equilibrium dissociation constant (Kd) of 93.7 ± 7.0 nM. Additionally, a modified sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed by using the selected ssDNA MRE as the toxin-capturing element and a sensitive detection of 200 nM alpha toxin in undiluted human serum samples was achieved.
